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The majority of global office rents will hold firm or increase in 2010, according to Knight Frank in advance of its Global Report 2010 launch.
Tokyo continued to command the highest office rents in the world during 2009. Despite substantial rental falls during 2009, eight of last year's top 10 have remained in the top 10: London West End (2), Paris (3), Moscow (4), St Petersburg (5), Abu Dhabi (6), Dubai (7), Singapore (8), Hong Kong (9).
St Petersburg (5) and London's City market (10) have returned to the top 10 moving up from 2008 to 13th and 12th places respectively.
This is a 'provisional' list and the company says that Bahrain's capital Manama is likely to be ranked in the mid-40s, with a rent of 272 euros/sq m/annum ($400), down from 306 euros/sq m/annum ($430) in 2008.
Joe Simpson, head of commercial international research, Knight Frank, said: "A quarter of the cities surveyed are expected to see a fall in rents in 2010, but in most cases the degree which rents will decrease will be marginal in comparison to the negative movement seen in 2009. The remaining 75 per cent will see rents at worst holding firm, with approximately half expected to show positive rental growth in the year ahead."
London's West End witnessed falls of more than 20 per cent, while Hong Kong, Dubai and St Petersburg saw rental falls in excess of 30 per cent and Singapore saw rents more than halve in 2009.
New York saw one of the heaviest falls of all the major global office markets, with a 45 per cent decline. This has resulted in a plunge in New York's rank amongst the expensive major office markets from 15th at the end of 2008 to 21st at the end of 2009.
More than half the cities surveyed are not forecast to see further rental decline in 2010, and 40 per cent of the markets surveyed are expected to see growth in the coming year.
Just outside the top ten was Sydney, which saw rents grow substantially as the Australian dollar strengthened.
